Sarah Brownsberger’s poems have recently appeared in Poetry East, Commonweal, and WomenArts Quarterly and have previously appeared in The Hudson Review, Field, OnEarth, Salamander,Alaska Quarterly Review,and other journals. Her essay “Poetry, Hunger, and Electric Lights: Lessons from Iceland on Poetry and its Audience” appeared in the September, 2015, CambridgeQuarterly (UK). Her Icelandic-English translations include Sigfús Bjartmarsson’s bestiary Raptorhood (Uppheimar, 2007) and Harpa Árnadóttir’s artist’s diary June (Crymogea, 2011).

“When the Answer Is Touch” was created especially for the 2016 Plein Air Poetry Walk at Old Frog Pond Farm in response to the prompt: SPLASH! Come to the farm to hear Terry House and 18 other poets read their original work in the settings in which they were composed on Sunday, September 11 2016 at 2 p.m..

Terry House is an educator, freelance arts reviewer, and Vice President of the Robert Creeley Foundation.

Lynne Viti is a senior lecturer in the Writing Program at Wellesley College. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Paterson Review, Mountain Gazette, The LongLeaf Pine, Amuse-Bouche, Silver Birch Press, These Fragile Lilacs, Damfino Journal, In-Flight Literary Magazine,Blognostics,A New Ulster, The Journal of Applied Poetics, The Lost Country, Irish Literary Review, and in a curated exhibit at Boston City Hall. She won an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest, and an award in the 2015 Summer Poetry Contest of The Song Is... She blogs at https://stillinschool.wordpress.com.

To look at the worldwith devotion,giving all of himselfto what was given,sometimes gave himso much pleasurehe thought it must bea sin, distracting himfrom his devotionto God. Thereforethe eyes had to be

taken into custodylike a pair of criminals,kept in the flesh-and-bone cell of the head,their gaze cast downin penitence,the eyes themselveswatched overto prevent them fromlooking at anythingmore than was neededto get through the day.For weeks or monthsat a time, and oncefor half a year,he denied himselfthe beauty he knewmore acutely than others,as if reducing each thing—flower, stone, bird—to a single word,stripping it of thesingularityhe loved to describein rushing phrasesthat spilled downhis journal’s pages.But when the penanceended, his sightflew outinto the open skyand over the fields,innocently comingto rest on each self-expressing elementof creationwith such delightand gratitudehe couldn’t keepthe words frompouring out of him.

from Into Daylight, by Jeffrey Harrison, Tupelo Press, 2014

Jeffrey Harrison is the author of five books of poetry, including Incomplete Knowledge, runner-up for the Poets’ Prize in 2008, and Into Daylight, published by Tupelo Press in 2014 as the winner of the Dorset Prize and selected by the Massachusetts Center for the Book as a Must-Read Book for 2015. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, his poems have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies.

Pamela Starr lives in Hudson, Massachusetts, and has worked as a textbook editor, technical writer, and project manager. Previous publications include an essay in Negative Capability as well as poems in Ballard Street Poetry Journal, GlassFire Magazine, Tilt-a-Whirl, and CurrentsAnthology VII.

Zero Gravitas and ALPHABETRICKS are Barbara Lydecker Crane’s chapbooks, available on Amazon. She has published over 100 poems–humorous or serious (or sometimes both)– in poetry journals and anthologies, including recent or forthcoming work in Atlanta Review, First Things, Light and Parody.

A species of tiny human has been discovered, which lived on the remote Indonesian island of Flores just 18,000 years ago. . . . Researchers have so far unearthed remains from eight individuals who were just one metre tall, with grapefruit-sized skulls. These astonishing little people . . . made tools, hunted tiny elephants and lived at the same time as modern humans who were colonizing the area.

Protects the horizon, which we would devour.One day I want to dive in and drift,

Legs and arms wracked with danger.Like a dark star. I want to last.

from Duende (Graywolf Press, 2007)

Tracy K. Smith is the 2016 winner of the Robert Creeley Award. The public is invited to see Ms. Smith receive her award and read from her work at the Acton-Boxborough Regional High School auditorium on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio is a sponsor of this free community event. We hope to see you there!

Ms. Smith is the author of Life on Mars (Graywolf Press), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011; the memoir Ordinary Light (Knopf, 2015); and two other award-winning books of poetry, Duende and The Body's Question (Graywolf, 2002). She teaches at Princeton University.

Eve F.W. Linn received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing with a Poetry Concentration from Lesley University, Low-Residency Program and her B.A. cum laude in Studio Art from Smith College. She lives and writes west of Boston with her family. She enjoys fiber arts, photography, strong coffee, and dark chocolate, and dislikes small salty fish.

*A renga is a Japanese form of “linked poem," composed of alternating three- and two-line stanzas by poets working in pairs or small groups. This poem links lines excerpted from complete works from the following poets: Polly Brown, Lila Linda Terry, Terry House, William Lenderking, Deborah Melone, Franny Osman, Cheryl Perreault, and Susan Edwards Richmond.

Dawn Paul teaches writing and interdisciplinary studies at Montserrat College of Art and has published two novels, The Country of Loneliness and Still River. Her poetry has been published most recently in the Naugatuck River Review and the Paterson Literary Review. She is also a frequent performer on the Improbable Places Poetry Tour and works with the Mass Poetry Festival.

Louise Berliner plays with words, herbs, fiber, and vine. She has a studio at the Umbrella in Concord, MA. Her poems, articles, and short fiction have appeared in VQR, The Mom Egg, Porter Gulch Review, Ibbetson Review, Sacred Fire magazine, and plein air chapbook collections from Old Frog Pond and Fruitlands. She is the author of Texas Guinan, Queen of the Night Clubs, and when she isn’t writing or weaving can be found walking at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

Leonore Wilson is the author of Western Solstice and Tremendum, Augustum, and has published in Quarterly West, Madison Review, Third Coast, Poets Against the War, and other journals. She has taught at universities and colleges throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and won fellowships to the University of Utah and Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts. She lives on her family cattle ranch in Napa, California.

Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio

Old Frog Pond Farm is one of the only a pick your own certified organic orchards in Massachusetts. Located in Harvard, MA, the farm is open for pick your own apples and raspberries late August to Columbus Day.